


Ten Minutes

by allonsymckenzie



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Car Accidents, M/M, One-Sided Mavin, The rest of the Acheivement Hunter guys make small appearances, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 02:40:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1013079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allonsymckenzie/pseuds/allonsymckenzie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When someone’s mind is in crisis mode, every second feels like an hour. Every minute feels like a day. Every single hour feels like eternity. The pain and panic felt in that moment is one that no one would wish upon another, that no one person should feel.</p><p>And in this moment, Gavin Free felt exactly that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten Minutes

When someone’s mind is in crisis mode, every second feels like an hour. Every minute feels like a day. Every single hour feels like eternity. The pain and panic felt in that moment is one that no one would wish upon another, that no one person should feel.  
  
And in this moment, Gavin Free felt exactly that.  
  
2:33 pm: text from Geoff  
Have you heard from Michael? He left an hour ago and hasn’t showed back up.  
  
Gavin frowned at the screen of his cell phone. Michael had just left to grab the gaming laptop he left at home, and it wouldn’t have taken him this long to do that.  
  
2:33 pm: text to Geoff  
No, I haven’t. I could try calling him.  
  
Gavin dialed the familiar number, his addled mind not thinking to go through his contacts.  
2:33 pm: Call to Michael; no answer.  
  
Gavin’s heart began to pound painfully. This didn’t feel right. But he could just be jumping to conclusions. This was Gavin after all.  
  
2:33 pm: Call to Michael; no answer.  
2:33 pm: Call to Michael; no answer.  
2:33 pm: Call to Michael; no answer.  
2:33 pm: Call to Michael; no answer.  
2:33 pm: Call to Michael; no answer.  
2:33 pm: Call to Michael; no answer.  
  
2:33 pm: text to Geoff  
He’s not answering...  
  
Gavin swallowed hard, clutching the phone in his hand. Something didn’t feel right at all. His stomach balled up, the nerves twisting and turning inside. His eyes darted around the room, to Jack and Ray, minding their own business at their desks, to Ryan, moving his cluttered mess out of his way to get up from his couch.  
  
“You okay there, Gav?” Ryan asked as he passed by, noticing the blank stare on the Brit’s face, snapping him back to reality.  
  
“Oh, yeah...just thinking.” he laughed nervously, looking back down to the screen, the too-familiar squak of his own voice acting like a knife in his ears.  
  
2:34 pm: text from Geoff  
Gav, fucking...he’s in a fucking wreck. Just...we need to fucking go.  
  
Numb fingers hastily replied, all feeling draining from his body.  
  
2:34 pm: text to Geoff  
Where is he? I’ll meet you at the car.  
  
Floating legs carried him out of the room, the voices of everyone he passed by calling to him, asking why he’s in a hurry or where he’s going, but Gavin’s brain processed nothing around him except what could take him to his boy.  
  
Geoff was already waiting by his car outside, his face pale, looking sick to his stomach. Gavin looked down at his phone: 2:35 pm.  
  
“Get in.” was all Gavin needed to hear, and they were flying out of the parking lot and out into the mid-afternoon traffic of Austin.  
  
“What happened?” Gavin heard his own voice say, while fixing his eyes out through the window, to the passing traffic, going about their business, unaware of anything.  
  
“Car ran a red light, ran right into Michael’s car.” Geoff’s own voice felt unfamiliar to him, like it was a robot speaking on his behalf. The call from the panicked onlooker who picked up Michael’s tossed phone was like a knife, darting through his ear and into his brain. The scene they described was enough to turn his stomach. He just thought the dumbass was dinking around at home, just being stupid. But not this, anything but this.  
  
“Bloody hell...” Gavin sighed. Tears stung at the corners of his eyes, his hands shaking nervously. The squak rang out once more, and both men jumped from their own nerves. Gavin moved to unlock the screen and read the message.  
  
2:36 pm: text from Ray  
Everything okay, Vav?  
  
He glanced at Geoff. “Ray wants to know what’s going on.”  
  
“Tell him we’ll get back to them in a bit.” Geoff darted through the traffic, the sounds of sirens becoming clearer as they drew closer.  
  
2:36 pm: text to Ray  
I’ll tell you in a bit.  
  
He stared at the screen of the phone, the blaring noise loud and clear now. He couldn’t will himself to look up. He didn’t want to.  
  
“Oh my fucking God.” Geoff sighed, parking and darting out of the car. Gavin didn’t see him move; he didn’t want to. Not his boy, he didn’t wanna see the scene, the rush of the EMTs and the police, the panicked and worried and curious onlookers waiting by the wings. He squeezed his eyes tight, as if the motion would not only wipe away the sight, but the sound, and possibly the event, from existence.  
  
“Gavin!” Geoff’s voice called out, seemingly from a distance, pulling his eyes to the wreckage beyond the car’s window.  
  
Michael’s car remained in the road, the driver’s side door completely obliterated, the rescue crew having already cut the wreckage out of the way. Glass littered the ground around the feet of the people tending to the mess. The other car rested a few feet away, facing Geoff’s, the grill bashed in the same shape as the side of Michael’s car. Gavin opened the door, his breath as calm as he could manage in order to even face this mess, and he grabbed his phone from the seat, the time reflecting back 2:37 pm.  
  
He walked (or did he sprint? He couldn’t remember.) to Geoff, who stood just at the edge of the wreck, on his side of the yellow tape now marking off the scene.  
  
“Gavin...” Geoff sighed, looking at the boy. Years of living with him had made the boy feel almost like a son to him. And after countless nights of chilling at his house, just the two of them, things always managed their way to the surface. One more recent development being Gavin’s confession to loving Michael. Geoff just smiled and pulled the boy into a hug at his confession. And now this, this had to happen, and it couldn’t make Geoff any more sick with worry, for Gavin, for the guys back at the office, for his own self.  
  
Gavin looked at Geoff’s avoiding gaze, begging an answer. His voice sounded distant, as if it weren’t attached to his own body. Geoff just nudged his shoulder, pulling him in for a hug, a whisper of “I’m sorry” coming through Gavin’s mind.  
  
Every part of Gavin’s body became active once more. He could feel his hands push at Geoff’s chest, pushing him away. He could feel his own mouth move, hear his own voice beg “Why are you sorry? What’s happened? Where’s Michael?” until he followed the gaze of the onlookers to the center of the wreckage.  
  
To the sheet being tended to by the medics.  
  
The life drained out of Gavin’s body, his knees buckling at the sight. His tongue went numb, his throat gagging him, cutting off the air he so desperately needed. The sharp sting in his eyes begged for release, but his body didn’t allow the pleasure. Gavin heard a painfully loud cry, and his heart lept for that split second, hoping it was Michael. Then he quickly realized it was his own voice, his own cry, spilling from his lungs. He tried to stop but couldn’t.  
  
Geoff looked on, crouched by Gavin on the ground. He watched them load Michael’s lifeless body onto the ambulance, the car turning off the lights, not bothering with the sirens as it drove off casually. Every hope he had faded as that car left. All he could do was hold Gavin, muffle the cries coming from the boy, let the tears fall from his own eyes.  
  
Geoff’s phone vibrated, the sound muffled to both of them, and Geoff pulled it from his pocket, answering it.  
  
2:38 pm: call from Jack  
“Dude, what’s going on? Gavin went running out of the building all of a sudden, muttering something about Michael.”  
  
“It’s...” Geoff sighed, sniffling just a bit. Gavin’s cries reduced themselves to silent hiccups, his body wracking with each intake of breath. “He’s..gone, Jack. Michael’s gone.”  
  
2:39 pm: text from Ray  
Gav...oh my fucking God, I’m so so sosorry....  
  
Gavin blew the message off, not bothered by typing a reply. What could he say right now? He felt cold, his skin chilling his body down to the bone. The bright sun bearing down on him couldn’t even begin to warm him. The light of his life had been blown out, too quickly, too suddenly, and nothing could change the way Gavin saw the world now.  
  
Down on the ground, arms pulling his knees close, his forehead resting upon them, the memories began to flood his mind. And as much as he fought them back, tried to keep them from coming, Michael’s image vivdly played out inside him.  
  
 _“You fucking moron!”_ the way he raged out at him, playing Slender so long ago, and how he could feel in his heart that he’d worked his way into Michael’s. The face of rage Michael wore was just a mask, and he knew there was, deep inside Michael, an affection for Gavin, a love of some sort. Gavin knew it was there, inside that boy, and he worked hard from that day forward to bring it out.  
  
2:40 pm: text from Ryan  
Gavin...i don’t know what to say. Jack just talked to Geoff and I just, I cant even begin to say what I’m thinking myself. I’m here if you need anything, man.  
  
The redhead’s curls were a thing Gavin always loved. He could picture running his hands through them casually, lovingly. He could imagine gripping them tightly, pulling the boy closer to him. He could feel the soft tendrils brushing across his face, even though they never had. The imagined feeling clenched his gut even tighter as he remained on the ground, Geoff next to him, supporting him wordlessly.  
  
2:41 pm: text from Jack  
Gav...just...man, I can’t even fucking speak. Just, text me when you can. Don’t go through this alone.  
  
The smile, the fucking smile even. The smirks the boy would shoot to Gavin when he said something dumb. The bright sunlight emulating from his full smile when they were out having a good time or had just successfully completed a task in a Let’s Play. It was all gone now, and he would never see a smile like that again, nor could he imagine trying to find it.  
  
2:42 pm: call from Dan; no answer.  
  
The word had gotten around the Rooster Teeth office in the short amount of time, and everyone was a wreck in one form or another. Michael’s rage had been a fixture in the small community, and the thought of his screams never again coming from that cramped office shattered everyone, but nowhere nearly as much as the Brit he sat next to on a daily basis.  
  
2:43 pm: 956 new mentions for @GavinFree  
  
“You’re my lovely little boy.” was all Gavin could think as Geoff handed him the small piece of jewelry the officer had found on the ground. It was the diamond pendant, and he looked from it to the creeper he wore around his neck that day.  
  
“You’re my boy, Michael.” He clutched the diamond, breaking down once more. Geoff pulled the boy to his feet, helping him back to the car.  
  
 _“I love him though, with all my heart.”_  
  
  
The bright sun had faded behind the growing amount of grey clouds, the sudden overcast reflecting the outlook Gavin now had on his life.  
  
“’ _You’re the sun_.’ No, Michael”, Gavin thought. _You’re_ the sun. And now my sun is gone.” In just ten minutes, Gavin Free’s life changed forever, and he wished every single minute that he could change it, that he could save Michael somehow, but nothing he could fathom could bring Michael back. So he clutched the diamond in his hand, pulled himself together, and prepared to face everyone at the office, the first time without Michael, and for that day onward.  
  
 _Team Nice Dynamite till the end._  


**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the recent plotline of The Young and the Restless, and the episode with Billy Abbott and his daughter, where only ten minutes pass in the entire show as seen through his cell phone, yet everything has been turned upside down. Plus, I've been wanting to try Major Character Death. Not gonna lie...not sure if I'll do it again. It made me cry.


End file.
